Etheral (high) elves and Crystal ogres

A Legion themed expansion may or may not be coming. That said, regarding new races, there are some races iconic to both sides that each wants for different reasons but that still haven't made their way to become playable.
For Alliance the culprit is high elves, and for the Horde it's ogres. Players from both sides have expressed their desire to see these races added time and time again, even if some don't want to.

The problem:
- for high elves the most clear problem is that they would essentially be the same to blood elves, only with blue eyes. So the Alliance would get a refurbished race... same lore, same looks as a Horde one, and if a new race is given to Horde, it wouldn't be nice as Horde get something new and shiny and alliance get blue eyed blood elves. If no race wouldn't be given to Horde, it would not be nice again as one race of the Horde would be made neutral tehnically.
-for ogres the most clear problems are size and general ugliness.

Yet both races have their adepts, going into lore aspects and general feel of the races and where they fit. So how could both races be fitted into their factions while bypassing the problems?

I present to you the idea of ethereal elves and crystal ogres as a possible solution(no pics, sorry, you'll need to use your imagination).

LOREEthereal Elves
Alleria and Turalyon ventured into a portal as Draenor was ending alongside a small army of high elves as at the time the high elves were stationed a bit further away from the Dark Portal itself, in today's Netherstorm. And there they met the ethereals. And the ethereals saved them, but at a price! In truth they had only saved them to use for their experiments since the ethereals they met were a bunch of scientists who didn't care about morality and whatnot, they wanted to send their own energy into the high elven bodies to become flesh and bones again. So they used Alleria, Turalyon and the high elves as test subjects and found that Turalyon wasn't so good, as humans don't absorb magic so well, but high elves do!

So then, he continued his experiments on them, in an attempt to remake his race into flesh beings, since that's what the experiments of the ethereals there was about. But the experiments weren't going so well, the high elves were in horrible pain and they were starting to unravel too. So the ethereals started putting those bandages on them too. In the meantime Turalyon wasn't considered a threat as he was aging more and more, but that was their mistake, because at one point Turalyon broke free and blew up the machine used by the etherals, freeing all the former high elves, now ethereal elves!
They left the etheral dimension and reached a floating island in Outland. From there they made contact with the Alliance and rejoined the Alliance. Since being ethereal meant the high elves were not subjected to the hunger for arcane anymore, they shared it with their Azerothian high elf bretheren (only high elves, not blood elves) and turned them too into ethereal elves, thus sending the idea of high elves into oblivion. Alleria however did not want to share the idea with blood elves too, as she felt the blood elves betrayed the ideals of Quel'Danas! They had allied themselves with the trolls and orcs, they sucked fel magic and killed living beings and furthermore they banished some of their own for not agreeing with them!

Crystal Ogres
The ogres of Ogri'la had been growing smarter on the mountains overlooking the other clans. They stood and pondered on how stupid the other clans under them were. If only they could share some of the wisdom the crystals had given them... but then the elders thought of a way! By taking some of the biggest crystals and blowing them up, they could spread some parts of the little crystals to their dumber versions down below. So that's what they did, they took some of the biggest crystals and assambled the ogre clans below. The ogres down there didn't understand what all those fancy words meant, but they stood for the free drinks and food. The Ogri'la ogres then blew up the crystals and splinters rained on all ogres but it didn't have the effect they wanted for the crystals shards reacted differently then they thought, they hit ogres like splinters and panic ensued. Some ogres were trampled by their own, some killed by the splinters.

The surviving ogres had splinters in their body, they could barely move yet they were lucky as the Horde fortress was close and the Horde saw all that had transpired and decided to take care of them. These few thousands of ogres were all in pain, yet they were the lucky ones, for many hundreads had died. The ogres showed little improvement, and in plus the crystal formations seemed to grow and the ogres to shrink. At long last, after months, one of the ogres awakened. His body was partially covered in crystals and he was smaller and different in a way. He then spoke, yet it was not the broken language ogres used to speak, it was clear and sounded smart. He had been made smarter. Soon others awakened, all smarter and smaller, and they decided to put petty hatreds aside and unite. As thanks for the help the Horde had given them in taking care of them, they'd join them in the Horde.

LOOKSEthereal elves
From a distance etheral elves look similar to high elves, yet when you get close you can see the difference. You can see their ears popping out and their blue eyes, but parts of their body are bandaged with those ethereal bandages, and the skin under seems to flicker in and out of existance, sort of like ghosts. You can imagine, half bandages, half high elf, and the space between pure energy. And the bandages seem to be part of them, I mean, like come out of their skin, on the face this would be seen best, the center of the face seems regular elf, though a bit transparent, but on the sides the skin starts to unravel into those bandages forming hair and going down on the neck even.
Think of it this way, in the center you have their face, a bit ghostly. from the ears, the neck and hair, it seems to unravel radiating bandages towards the back of the head, like an octopus. On the body, the bandages seem to unravel around the hands (their hands seem to be made fully of bandages, like you've cut them out of paper and put them on the elves), same on legs, and also around their chest, leaving a trace of energy in the middle pulsating outwards.
The ethereal elves have the typical ethereal movement, like they're teleporting over.

Crystal ogres
Crystal ogres look quite different then their counterparts. They're smaller, the size of tauren, they are also a bit slimmer from the time they were in a coma and didn't eat anything.
Besides these changes, parts of their body are covered in strange crystals, making it look like those parts of the ogres are actually made out of crystal. In general much of the parts between joints seem to suffer this problem, leaving it seem like pieces of meet grow into crystals there.
Being slimmer, they look more similar to pandaren in body type, just a tiny bit chubbier, yet also taller.

Classes:
Ethereal elves - warrior, rogue, paladin, priest, druid (the high elves knew some things about druidism, not much, but combined with the etheral knowledge and machines, they managed to control nature by force rather then by asking it, kind of like the difference between tauren and taunka regarding elements), hunter, mage, death knight (some high elves that had been raised were not accepted by their blood elven bretheren because of the prejudice against high elves, and were left without a home, wondering the world, they were taken in by the Alliance out of pity more and now the ethereal elves felt simpaty for their plight since it's similar to theirs and transformed them into ethereal death knights as well, with the mention that in the death knight starting area you're a regular elf, and at the end you get turned in a etheral elf before you get sent to SW, more out of in-game mechanics then actually what happened) and warlocks (yes, the ethereal elves are a bit hypocritical, accusing the blood elves of using fel yet still using it themselves, I think it gives more growth potential into their lore) . So ethereal elves can't be: shamans and monks.
Crystal ogres - warrior, rogue (their smaller stature permits them to go unseen, and they can use the crystals in their body so sort of alter perception, making them able to be rogues), priest, shaman, hunter, mage, warlock, death knight (ogres did die as ogres were on Azeroth at the time when the Lich King started his attack so not unbelievable) and monks (some went and learned the monk style of balance as they wanted to learn more. So they can't be paladins and druids.

Mounts:
Ethereal elves ride ghostly unicorns (what can you do, all their actual unicorns died, they brought some back with the ethereal knowledge, but they're not perfect).
Crystal ogres ride giant fel boars.

Mention, as I didn't have time to draw something, you'll have to use your imagination of what I explained. So what do you think?

Frankly, I don't see the problem with ogres being ugly. I mean, they're ogres. If you're playing an ogre, it's because you want to be a lumbering brute, beating your chest and generally clobbering the heck out of anything in your path. I mean, that's what makes them so endearing in the first place.

The inherent problem with ogres is the size thing (imagine an ogre riding a low-riding mount, like the goblin trike, orc wolf, or mechano hog.)
Giving them a deviant that's smaller than the current ogre is a good idea.

The only problem with putting players as a "New race" that's been offshot from former soldiers of another race is the limited population. Lorewise, it's hard to explain why there's thousands of these people when only hundreds existed in the first place. A good example on how they've done something like this "Correctly" in the past would be Worgen, Goblin, Pandaren, or even Blood Elven story archs. (Where entire populations are forced to take up arms) You'd need a significant chunk of a nation to provide a new race.

Frankly, I don't see the problem with ogres being ugly. I mean, they're ogres. If you're playing an ogre, it's because you want to be a lumbering brute, beating your chest and generally clobbering the heck out of anything in your path. I mean, that's what makes them so endearing in the first place.

Bonus points if some skins include an extra head.

You'd have the option of ugly faces too and 2-headed ogres (for game mechanic reasons, when you get a helm, both heads get helms). Just that ogres did need to be a bit smaller, and I know that most people wouldn't play ogres if they re ugly, they'd like them for their lore, but that's about it. I remember reading somewhere that trolls are one of the least played races, yet you see people praising their lore everywhere! Why is that? Because, as people say, they only have one nice face for females and none for males. Now it's a subjective matter, but making ogres look a bit less ugly, at least facial wise is something needed. The proportions to current ogres would be similar, only smaller in size since now they're bigger then tauren and as such they couldn't have mounts or enter most doors.

Originally Posted by Belize

Why'd all the unicorns die D: did they run out of oats!?

The etherals didn't know what the high elves ate normally so they killed the unicorns and gave them the meat to eat.

---------- Post added 2013-04-16 at 10:37 PM ----------

Originally Posted by blackblade

Actually.

I like it.

The inherent problem with ogres is the size thing (imagine an ogre riding a low-riding mount, like the goblin trike, orc wolf, or mechano hog.)
Giving them a deviant that's smaller than the current ogre is a good idea.

The only problem with putting players as a "New race" that's been offshot from former soldiers of another race is the limited population. Lorewise, it's hard to explain why there's thousands of these people when only hundreds existed in the first place. A good example on how they've done something like this "Correctly" in the past would be Worgen, Goblin, Pandaren, or even Blood Elven story archs. (Where entire populations are forced to take up arms) You'd need a significant chunk of a nation to provide a new race.

Thank you

Yes, that's why I thought of the crystal "disease" making ogres smaller. It had to have some drawbacks though.

For ogres there's enough ogres in Blade's Edge, though I admit for etheral (high) elves it is problematic as we don't know numbers of high elves sent to Outland in First and Second wars. Though if the Darkspear trolls, a tribe decimated by naga, storms, alliance ships under admiral Proudmoore, Garrosh, Zalazane etc still managed to be an important part to the Horde, Etheral elves could work too. It could be argued that the bandage wrapping lowered their life as the bandages are part of themselves, yet they decay faster then regular high elves would, leaving them to live for only... 150 years let's say but also giving them a higher birthrate. Etheral elves children are sort of born as partially ghost-flesh and partially energy and are wrapped in the bandages from birth. This way the etheral elves could have a growth rate that would make them relevant even if some die in conflicts.

Or it could be said that the evil etherals bred some baby high elves in vitro to be used for all of them since they didn't have enough then artificially aged them using their machines.

A Legion themed expansion may or may not be coming. That said, regarding new races, there are some races iconic to both sides that each wants for different reasons but that still haven't made their way to become playable.
For Alliance the culprit is high elves, and for the Horde it's ogres. Players from both sides have expressed their desire to see these races added time and time again, even if some don't want to.

The problem:
- for high elves the most clear problem is that they would essentially be the same to blood elves, only with blue eyes. So the Alliance would get a refurbished race... same lore, same looks as a Horde one, and if a new race is given to Horde, it wouldn't be nice as Horde get something new and shiny and alliance get blue eyed blood elves. If no race wouldn't be given to Horde, it would not be nice again as one race of the Horde would be made neutral tehnically.
-for ogres the most clear problems are size and general ugliness.

Yet both races have their adepts, going into lore aspects and general feel of the races and where they fit. So how could both races be fitted into their factions while bypassing the problems?

I present to you the idea of etheral elves and crystal ogres as a possible solution(no pics, sorry, you'll need to use your imagination).

LOREEtheral Elves
Alleria and Turalyon ventured into a portal as Draenor was ending alongside a small army of high elves as at the time the high elves were stationed a bit further away from the Dark Portal itself, in today's Netherstorm. And there they met the etherals. And the etherals saved them, but at a price! In truth they had only saved them to use for their experiments since the etherals they met were a bunch of scientists who didn't care about morality and whatnot, they wanted to send their own energy into the high elven bodies to become flesh and bones again. So they used Alleria, Turalyon and the high elves as test subjects and found that Turalyon wasn't so good, as humans don't absorb magic so well, but high elves do!

So then, he continued his experiments on them, in an attempt to remake his race into flesh beings, since that's what the experiments of the etherals there was about. But the experiments weren't going so well, the high elves were in horrible pain and they were starting to unravel too. So the etherals started putting those bandages on them too. In the meantime Turalyon wasn't considered a threat as he was aging more and more, but that was their mistake, because at one point Turalyon broke free and blew up the machine used by the etherals, freeing all the former high elves, now etheral elves!
They left the etheral dimension and reached a floating island in Outland. From there they made contact with the Alliance and rejoined the Alliance. Since being etheral meant the high elves were not subjected to the hunger for arcane anymore, they shared it with their Azerothian high elf bretheren (only high elves, not blood elves) and turned them too into etheral elves, thus sending the idea of high elves into oblivion. Alleria however did not want to share the idea with blood elves too, as she felt the blood elves betrayed the ideals of Quel'Danas! They had allied themselves with the trolls and orcs, they sucked fel magic and killed living beings and furthermore they banished some of their own for not agreeing with them!

Crystal Ogres
The ogres of Ogri'la had been growing smarter on the mountains overlooking the other clans. They stood and pondered on how stupid the other clans under them were. If only they could share some of the wisdom the crystals had given them... but then the elders thought of a way! By taking some of the biggest crystals and blowing them up, they could spread some parts of the little crystals to their dumber versions down below. So that's what they did, they took some of the biggest crystals and assambled the ogre clans below. The ogres down there didn't understand what all those fancy words meant, but they stood for the free drinks and food. The Ogri'la ogres then blew up the crystals and splinters rained on all ogres but it didn't have the effect they wanted for the crystals shards reacted differently then they thought, they hit ogres like splinters and panic ensued. Some ogres were trampled by their own, some killed by the splinters.

The surviving ogres had splinters in their body, they could barely move yet they were lucky as the Horde fortress was close and the Horde saw all that had transpired and decided to take care of them. These few thousands of ogres were all in pain, yet they were the lucky ones, for many hundreads had died. The ogres showed little improvement, and in plus the crystal formations seemed to grow and the ogres to shrink. At long last, after months, one of the ogres awakened. His body was partially covered in crystals and he was smaller and different in a way. He then spoke, yet it was not the broken language ogres used to speak, it was clear and sounded smart. He had been made smarter. Soon others awakened, all smarter and smaller, and they decided to put petty hatreds aside and unite. As thanks for the help the Horde had given them in taking care of them, they'd join them in the Horde.

LOOKSEtheral elves
From a distance etheral elves look similar to high elves, yet when you get close you can see the difference. You can see their ears popping out and their blue eyes, but parts of their body are bandaged with those etheral bandages, and the skin under seems to flicker in and out of existance, sort of like ghosts. You can imagine, half bandages, half high elf, and the space between pure energy. And the bandages seem to be part of them, I mean, like come out of their skin, on the face this would be seen best, the center of the face seems regular elf, though a bit transparent, but on the sides the skin starts to unravel into those bandages forming hair and going down on the neck even.
Think of it this way, in the center you have their face, a bit ghostly. from the ears, the neck and hair, it seems to unravel radiating bandages towards the back of the head, like an octopus. On the body, the bandages seem to unravel around the hands (their hands seem to be made fully of bandages, like you've cut them out of paper and put them on the elves), same on legs, and also around their chest, leaving a trace of energy in the middle pulsating outwards.
The etheral elves have the typical etheral movement, like they're teleporting over.

Crystal ogres
Crystal ogres look quite different then their counterparts. They're smaller, the size of tauren, they are also a bit slimmer from the time they were in a coma and didn't eat anything.
Besides these changes, parts of their body are covered in strange crystals, making it look like those parts of the ogres are actually made out of crystal. In general much of the parts between joints seem to suffer this problem, leaving it seem like pieces of meet grow into crystals there.
Being slimmer, they look more similar to pandaren in body type, just a tiny bit chubbier, yet also taller.

Classes:
Etheral elves - warrior, rogue, paladin, priest, druid (the high elves knew some things about druidism, not much, but combined with the etheral knowledge and machines, they managed to control nature by force rather then by asking it, kind of like the difference between tauren and taunka regarding elements), hunter, mage, death knight (some high elves that had been raised were not accepted by their blood elven bretheren because of the prejudice against high elves, and were left without a home, wondering the world, they were taken in by the Alliance out of pity more and now the etheral elves felt simpaty for their plight since it's similar to theirs and transformed them into etheral death knights as well, with the mention that in the death knight starting area you're a regular elf, and at the end you get turned in a etheral elf before you get sent to SW, more out of in-game mechanics then actually what happened) and warlocks (yes, the etheral elves are a bit hypocritical, accusing the blood elves of using fel yet still using it themselves, I think it gives more growth potential into their lore) . So etheral elves can't be: shamans and monks.
Crystal ogres - warrior, rogue (their smaller stature permits them to go unseen, and they can use the crystals in their body so sort of alter perception, making them able to be rogues), priest, shaman, hunter, mage, warlock, death knight (ogres did die as ogres were on Azeroth at the time when the Lich King started his attack so not unbelievable) and monks (some went and learned the monk style of balance as they wanted to learn more. So they can't be paladins and druids.

Mounts:
Etheral elves ride ghostly unicorns (what can you do, all their actual unicorns died, they brought some back with the etheral knowledge, but they're not perfect).
Crystal ogres ride giant fel boars.

Mention, as I didn't have time to draw something, you'll have to use your imagination of what I explained. So what do you think?

I didn't liked it.
Not because its bad idea, dont get me wrong your concept is pretty cool, but i simply dont think helfs and ogres are what faction need atm. I simply can't imagine what role they would fill in respective factions, and existing lore puts more limits than it gives possibilities. In my opinion if we ever gonna get new races, they should be something completely new (possibly from another worlds) that would fit into theme of expansion and had add something for faction. High elves are basically what humans are, seeing how human is apparently strongest mage ever etc, and lets face it with majority of elven race in horde all helf lore would be far-fatched. As for ogres do we really need another big guys ? Ogres (even heavily altered) dont really bring anything but models. And it would be quite possible they would end like goblins who despite great models are rarely played. So as far as i go 2 completely new races and no neutral race BS.

The problem is that by "otherizing" them, they are going to end up with the same out of focus treatment that draenei have.

blood elves and goblins are the most successful races in terms of lore entanglement, because they already have long presences in the world. On the other end of the spectrum, we have Worgen and Draenei, to races with little agency in world affairs, completely subsidiary to Stormwind.

Originally Posted by Arrashi

I didn't liked it.
Not because its bad idea, dont get me wrong your concept is pretty cool, but i simply dont think helfs and ogres are what faction need atm. I simply can't imagine what role they would fill in respective factions, and existing lore puts more limits than it gives possibilities. In my opinion if we ever gonna get new races, they should be something completely new (possibly from another worlds) that would fit into theme of expansion and had add something for faction. High elves are basically what humans are, seeing how human is apparently strongest mage ever etc, and lets face it with majority of elven race in horde all helf lore would be far-fatched. As for ogres do we really need another big guys ? Ogres (even heavily altered) dont really bring anything but models. And it would be quite possible they would end like goblins who despite great models are rarely played. So as far as i go 2 completely new races and no neutral race BS.

Same problem here, completely new races will probably end up with the same out of focus treatment, they are going to be put aside on the next expansion. It is almost pointless to build up new races so they are forgotten one expansion later. If the sole selling point is cool models, there are simpler forms to implement just that.

Pandaren are going to probably be shoved in the back burner after pandaria unless they develop him the way worgen should have. There are several races in Azeroth with enough lore and permanence to be better candidates for playable -who actually have an impact in the world- instead of wasting resources on a race that is going to be reduced only to a model.

Naga, High elves, Ogres are three races that have connections with both Azeroth and Outland; they are already fleshed out significantly and ogres and high elves already are part of the playable factions and. Vrykul, Satyr, Nerubian and Mantid are races present in azeroth that have enough of a history to be more than just one trick ponies.

Jinyu and Hozen are races already pledged to a faction; they could be added as player models without even having to dwell to much in lore; just enough to keep pandaria current in future expansions and add variety without having to build up lore.

I understand that new and cool races are interesting and desirable to play; but if history as taught us anything is that they lack long term viability.

Don't get me wrong... I love elves. I have loved elves since I first learned to play D&D lo these many years ago. But even I think the last thing WoW needs right now is more elves. Straight up ethereals would be fine, though.

I do like the ogre idea, though. It would be a good lore method of overcoming the things that presently make ogres mechanically difficult to do.

When asked about the role of women in video games, Samus Aran said, "..." - and then she blew up the planet. AGAIN.

I present to you the idea of etheral elves and crystal ogres as a possible solution(no pics, sorry, you'll need to use your imagination).

Oh no, this sounds like Burning Crusade all over again. It's too far from normal fantasy. I HATED those weapons in TBC that simply had crystals hovering in mid air, it doesn't make sense for an axe or sword. For a magic staff it's kinda okay, but it was very much overdone in general.

And now you want to implement that on a race? NO!
I think most people were happy when WotLK went back to more normalized fantasy setting.

As an Alliance player I personally don't want High Elves playable, I think there are enough Elves running around.

Regardless, I don't think we'll see ANY new races next expansion. Instead, we'll see new models for all the Vanilla races. Considering how much work that will take I doubt they'll have time for a new race, and it serves essentially the same purpose.

Honestly, this is the first time I actually consider high/ethereal Elves for Alliance. The Ogre problem is not that much of a problem to me, but I sure would support them being smarter and joining the horde! Overall very neat concept! Try to draw it and send it to Blizz or post in forums!

Oh no, this sounds like Burning Crusade all over again. It's too far from normal fantasy. I HATED those weapons in TBC that simply had crystals hovering in mid air, it doesn't make sense for an axe or sword. For a magic staff it's kinda okay, but it was very much overdone in general.

And now you want to implement that on a race? NO!
I think most people were happy when WotLK went back to more normalized fantasy setting.

lol I don't even know what this^ means o_O. Never though of fantasy and imagination as a leveled thing. It's not like you can have 30% real 70% fantasy. everything in this game is Ffantasy!

Is your WoW experience so unfulfilling that you let what other people decide to do get you down?

That response is a little... disproportionate? There's no need to get snarky. All I meant was that we have two Elf races already, and I think that's enough. Adding High Elves would literally just be copy-pasting the Blood Elf model, why not add something more unique?

That response is a little... disproportionate? There's no need to get snarky. All I meant was that we have two Elf races already, and I think that's enough. Adding High Elves would literally just be copy-pasting the Blood Elf model, why not add something more unique?

Because a lot of people want it, they've been an integral part of Alliance lore since Warcraft I, there would be little to no retconning involved, and they have perfect reason to fight against the Horde.

Oh no, this sounds like Burning Crusade all over again. It's too far from normal fantasy. I HATED those weapons in TBC that simply had crystals hovering in mid air, it doesn't make sense for an axe or sword. For a magic staff it's kinda okay, but it was very much overdone in general.

Normal fantasy is like normal extremists. It doesn't exist. Also, everything in WoW is always overdone, usually comically.

As an Alliance player I personally don't want High Elves playable, I think there are enough Elves running around.

Regardless, I don't think we'll see ANY new races next expansion. Instead, we'll see new models for all the Vanilla races. Considering how much work that will take I doubt they'll have time for a new race, and it serves essentially the same purpose.

I agree with the first one. Why in the hell are ELVES always the go-to for fantasy games. Oh, a human with pointy ears. That's exciting." /yawn
aannnd. I sincerely hope you're correct on the second one. I can't even play my human paladin anymore, she just looks horrible.